Had something gone wrong?
Just when I was about to grab Disha and head to the Administration Building to ask what was up, a poof of smoke appeared at the front of the crowd.
Irmagard stepped out of it wearing vintage, black bell bottoms and a snug black sweater. Gerald, her ferret, peeked out of a large fanny pack slung around her waist. Her hair was loose and wild and her eyes held such exhaustion in their depths I wondered if someone should stand behind her in case she fainted.
“Students, students,” she said clapping her hands for our attention. “We are ready to begin. If you would come this way.” She gestured wildly and a shimmering light began to glow a few paces down the sidewalk.
It looked like a reflective lake floating in midair. As I watched, the braver of the students, most likely seniors, walked through the quivering air and disappeared.
Irmagard nodded, gesturing for more to filter through. “Come along. Through the glowing door.”
Disha and I shuffled along, still holding hands. I wondered where they were taking us and why we couldn’t have the memorial right on campus, but it was almost our turn to approach Irmagard’s spell.
“What is this?” I whispered to Disha.
“I’m not sure,” she said, frowning.
I examined the wavering spell, curious about its nature. Three more witches walked through, their bodies shimmering for a second before completely disappearing. No one screamed bloody murder or ran in the opposite direction so I assumed the glimmering gate was safe.
I squeezed Disha’s hand and together we walked through.
We popped out on the other side and into another world.
Everyone had gathered atop a tall hill. Ancient pines and firs served as a backdrop to a clearing the size of a large gymnasium. Simple witch lights hovered in the air, while a large bonfire burned at the far end of the field. Near the bonfire, all the teachers had gathered, standing in a line, looking somber and serious in their black dresses, suit coats, and capes.
But the miraculous thing about the place was the view.
Because the peak was the highest around, we could see everything. Trees stretched off in every direction, marching like green soldiers in a line toward the horizon. In the valley below, I could see our school, small and insignificant from so high up. And in the darkening distance, Atlanta’s skyscrapers stood out black against the pink and purple sky.
I sucked in a breath at the magnificent beauty of the moment.
Lynssa would have loved this. Simple. Elegant. Perfect.
Was it real or an illusion? I couldn’t tell. I knew there were hills in the distance around the school so it seemed to be an actual place doctored up by magic. I wondered why they hadn’t held the ceremony in the school’s stadium, but then decided if they had done that, we would always associate it with the dean’s death. How could we celebrate homecoming games, drink Witch’s Brew, and cheer if all we were thinking about was our dead dean? They’d made the right choice to hold the memorial here.
Irmagard cut through the crowd waving her hands as if admiring the beauty was not part of the ceremony. “This way. Gather round. Please hurry, it’s getting late.”
She was all business-like now. Or, rather, as business-like as Irmagard could get. It seemed rather odd how pulled-together she was after the display of emotions back in the office, but then, there was no one right way to grieve. I wouldn’t judge. Also, she might still be high on her happiness spell.
“Over here. Over here.” She waved her arms, jostling the fanny pack and Gerald, who seemed perturbed to be out this late. He burrowed into the folds of fabric and disappeared.
The crowd was dense and I was having a hard time seeing, but Disha knew what to do. She took my hand and began weaving her way through the students, ignoring their groans and snide comments while tossing back some of her own.
“Make way. Let us through. Don’t you know who this is?” she told them, nodding to me.
I blushed. God, she was embarrassing. My classmates already hated me enough. I spotted Bridget in the crowd, but the minute she saw me she dropped her eyes and slipped between two classmates until I couldn’t see her any longer. Still mad, I supposed.
My attention was drawn back to the scene ahead as Disha got us to the front of the crowd.
Everyone waited silently, wondering what our counselor was up to now. Glancing around, Irmagard realized the students in the back wouldn’t be able to see, so, with a wave of her hands, she commanded the ground beneath her feet to rise.
As the earth trembled, we held onto each other and watched as dirt and grass spewed into the air. When it was done, she and the staff presided above us from a hill about eight-feet high.
The staff appeared as shaken as we were and very uncertain about her state of mind, but Irmagard nodded as if creating a weird hill on another hill was exactly the thing to do. Regent Nyquist didn’t seem so sure. His rheumy eyes watched her with growing concern.
Pressing two fingers to her throat, she activated the megaphone spell teachers were so fond of using.
“Hello. Thanks for coming. Tonight we are going to honor my sister. She was a wonderful witch. I will miss her. That is all. Good night.” Irmagard turned and started to climb awkwardly down the sloped ground.
The crowd muttered and looked at each other. I caught the staff giving each other similar side-eye.
“What is she doing?” Disha asked me.
“She’s drunk on happiness?” I offered. “I don’t blame her.”
“I don’t either,” Disha said, “but this is hardly a memorial.”
Some of the staff seemed to agree because, as Irmagard moved away, a few of them stepped up. I recognized Professor Middleton, Nurse Taishi, and Professor Hitchcock-Watson. They stepped to the edge of the hill Irmagard had erected and raised their hands.
Everyone stopped talking and stared as the professors sent magic into the heavens.
For a moment, it seemed as if nothing was happening, but then I detected movement up in the night sky. Soon, the small pinpricks of light shifted positions. Someone thought to douse the witch lights and the bonfire so we could see better.
The teachers were moving the stars!
I didn’t know if it was a trick of the light or if they were actually able to move celestial bodies trillions of miles away, but it didn’t matter. Watching the lights cluster together felt akin to watching a baby being born or a mountain being formed, or like it must have felt when God or gods created the universe.
The stars finally aligned into an L and an M. Lynssa McIntosh.
The professors were silently weeping as they lowered their hands. Students began crying, as well. I stood, holding Disha’s hand, and feeling incredible sorrow and incredible gratitude that Lynssa had been in my life.
The moment fell on us and held, lingering like those special moments do.
Until an explosion broke everything apart.
We whirled, shaken violently out of that peaceful moment and into a terrifying one.
Behind us, fire curled fifty feet into the air, lighting up our quiet gathering. The ground shook and the earth cracked along tiny fissures. A group of people strode out of the darkness, the fire at their backs while magic burned on their hands. In their center stood Tempest.
The subversives were here and they were ready for a fight.
Chapter Twenty
SPRING SEMESTER
EARLY JANUARY
The world shifted around us.
Suddenly, trees and the lake lay in front of us, a wavering, blurry shadow, while the Administration Building sat behind us crisp and clear. There was no hilltop overlooking the school. We were still right on campus, not in some ethereal land by the clouds.
That is when I realized our surroundings had been a beautiful illusion that Irmagard had created. It’d been meant to give her sister a memorial worth remembering, and now the subversives had destroyed it.
They would pay.
My cuffs flashed w
ith light as I went into a crouch, ready to attack. Beside me Disha got ready, too, her fingers weaving as she formed a protection spell. Behind us, there was rustling as others got ready to join the fray, but I could only concentrate on my enemies as they advanced.
Tempest came closer. Her long black hair hung silk-like down her shoulders. At her side, I recognized Smudge Face and the woman who I now knew to be a Shadow Puppet. Rowan was also there, dressed in leather like his precious Ana, his eyes hooded and his lips moving fast as if he were muttering an elaborate spell. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. Half his arm was covered in blue flames.
Bastard! How could he interrupt the dean’s memorial? After all she had done for him?
Trying to control my anger, I glanced around searching for Irmagard, intent on protecting her, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. The rest of the teachers were preparing spells, some for protection, others for blasting the subversives off the planet. But where was Irmagard? She was not a fighter.
“Where’s Counselor McIntosh?” I asked Disha in a panic.
“I don’t know,” she answered, without taking her eyes off the approaching subversives.
Seniors and teachers pulled to the front, waving to the younger students to stay back. Disha and I moved forward with them. Each side stared, waiting for the other to make the first move, it seemed.
How had they gotten past all the protective wards around the Academy? Had Bonnie helped them? It was the first possibility that came to mind.
This couldn’t be happening. They couldn’t be here at the Academy, much less at a moment like this, when all the students and faculty were gathered in one place.
But that was the point, wasn’t it?
I spotted Regent Nyquist. It took me a moment to find him hiding behind Professor Middleton and peering over her shoulder as he surreptitiously sneaked out.
Seriously? I didn’t take him for a coward, but if the subversives were here for him—as I had warned him—maybe it was just the smart thing to do.
Backlit by the fiery gateway through which they’d broken through, the subversives assessed the crowd. Six against hundreds. What in the hell were they thinking?
Tempest was front and center, wearing a black jumpsuit with knee-high boots. Suddenly she raised her hands to the sky. White lightning jumped between her outstretched fingers. Her hair swirled around her, making her look villainous and formidable.
Her eyes surveyed the crowd. Finding her target, she pointed a finger at Regent Nyquist’s scurrying figure. “You! Don’t run, coward.”
She flicked a hand in his direction, a bolt of lightning gathering in the sky to smite him.
A cloud of red curls shot forward in a flash, the person under them readying a spell.
“You’ll pay for what you did to my brother and the dean,” Bridget shouted, releasing a defensive shield that swallowed Tempest’s elemental magic with a shuddering thunderclap.
Damn! Bridget was fast, getting her spell ahead of Professor Middleton’s, who had stayed in the front while the other teachers herded the bulk of the students to safety.
It was Rowan’s turn to step forward, the fire on his hand fading as he finished muttering his spell. He held up a fist. It was encased in a golden gauntlet. He splayed his fingers, sending out a wave of energy that swept over the crowd like fog.
As I inhaled, frigid air seeped into my lungs, freezing me in place. I tried to move, but my limbs were locked in place. My eyes darted around. A hush fell over all the students and faculty. No one else could move either. We were all petrified.
That was how they could take on hundreds with a group of six. Goddammit!
My gaze flicked to Rowan. He was watching me, an unreadable expression on his chiseled features. After a moment, he turned away, unable to withstand my scrutiny. Of course, he would turn away. He knew this was wrong and yet he was still doing it! Rage roiled in my gut as I fought against the spell keeping me pinned.
Tempest took a step forward.
“Get him!” she ordered the Shadow Puppet, pointing a finger at the trembling regent.
The Shadow Puppet flattened into a black sheet, then leaped into the air the way a crow might. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her fly forward and chase Regent Nyquist. Since he’d been hobbling away, he’d escaped the reach of Rowan’s freezing gauntlet and was frantically weaving his arthritic hands, though he seemed too flustered to manage any spells.
I struggled to move, but the gauntlet’s hold was too strong. I couldn’t even twitch my pinky. Damn freezing spells! Mink had immobilized me twice, just the reason why I’d studied counter spells during my summer break in Turkey. There was no way I would allow these subversives to show up on my campus and hurt anyone. I set to work, trying to figure out how to get free.
Rifling through what I’d learned, I watched helplessly as the Shadow Puppet caught up to Regent Nyquist, then jumped inside of him. The old man froze on the spot, his curved back going ramrod straight. Next, he turned on his heel and began marching back like a good little soldier. When he was a few paces away from Tempest, he stopped and dropped to his knees.
Sweat trickled down his bald head and the wispy, white hair above his ears stuck out like misaligned duck feathers. His body moved with certainty, but his eyes betrayed his fear. He knew they were here to kill him.
I growled inwardly, anger boiling in my gut. I’d mentally cast a few of the spells I’d learned in Turkey, but they hadn’t worked.
C’mon! I tried another one, reciting the incantation in my head while willing my cuffs to jump in and help, but they seemed particularly disinterested in the situation.
Damn it! Couldn’t one of the faculty do something? Fedorov? Middleton? Hitchcock-Watson? Anyone!
“Finally,” Tempest said, stepping closer to the regent and grabbing his face. Her long, red fingernails dug into his wrinkled skin as she forced him to look up at her. “I’ve waited for this moment for a long time. You will pay for what you’ve done and once everyone hears everything,” she gestured toward the immobile crowd, “I will end this.”
No. Nyquist was an old, dithering man, didn’t they have any compassion? Was no one safe from their blood-stained claws? I didn’t know what they had against the regent but going around murdering people wasn’t the answer. I pushed at the freezing spell with all my might.
Tempest glanced back at one of her cronies and jerked her head in a “come here” motion. An old hag I hadn’t noticed before stepped forward. She was dressed in flowing black robes that hung around her like rags. She had a hunched back and walked with a limp. Gray, stringy hair framed her haggard face like a cartoon version of a witch. All she needed was green skin and a few warts on her nose. Where did they find these people?!
Wasting no time, she extended knobby hands toward Regent Nyquist’s face. A blue light spilled from her fingers, tendrils latching onto the man’s wrinkled skin like hungry leeches. As soon as they made contact, the Shadow Puppet leaped out of the old man’s body and took her human shape again, quickly retreating toward the fiery opening that still burned behind the other subversives.
If I didn’t do something, I would be too late. These criminals would kill the regent right in front of our petrified faces, and no one would have the choice to avert their gaze from the horror.
I tried one last spell, pouring all my will into it. Power rose from my gut, surging like a tidal wave, washing over me, and destroying the magic that held me in place.
Free, I staggered forward, my arms windmilling for balance.
Noticing me, Tempest stepped in front of the regent and the witch, blocking them from view. “How did you…?”
For an instant, I was just as frozen as before, but this time by my own uncertainty, not from any spell. What should I do? If only I’d figured out what spell Tempest had pulled from the grimoire, maybe I could have acted.
Rowan stepped forward, holding the gauntlet in my direction. “No, Charlie. Stay out of this.” Then he unleashed its po
wer right at me.
Lightning fast, I erected a shield I’d learned from Fedorov, blocking the attack just as the gauntlet’s magic rolled through the air toward me. The fog dissolved against my invisible barrier as I rolled to the side and shot Tempest with a quick, blunt spell to the knees. She cried out and fell to the side as I continued rolling in the regent’s direction.
The old witch’s magic still flowed from her fingers, the blue tendrils pulsing and gripping the regent’s face ravenously. Dark smoke seemed to flow through them as if she were trying to push something into the old man.
My cuffs buzzed with magic as I gathered enough energy to blast her. I aimed and released the attack. A blaze of light flew at the old hag.
Almost nonchalantly, she lifted her free hand and blocked my spell. It fizzled into nothing while her other hand continued her incantation on the regent.
She looked at me in a strange way that made me hesitate. There was power in her gaze. I’d underestimated her.
From the corner of my eye, I perceived something dark. Movement. Coming fast.
Acting on instinct, I jumped to the side just in time to elude the Shadow Puppet’s attempt to ensnare me. A slip of blackness sailed past me and cut through the trees until I couldn’t see her any longer. No doubt she’d be back. The subversives were not playing fair. It was only me against a bunch of them.
Maybe there was something I could do about that.
Weaving my hands and speaking the same incantation that had freed me from Rowan’s freezing spell, I unleashed my magic onto the few closest to me.
Three of them came to life, blinking and staggering as they fought to regain their balance: Bridget, Disha, and Professor Fedorov.
Now… that was more like it.
Bridget went straight into an attack, releasing a sizzling, red-hot wind that blasted Smudge Face on his ass. Disha was slower to react but successfully cast a spell over the newly-reconstructed Shadow Puppet, a sort of intense spotlight that pierced right through its shadowy shape, freezing it in place like a deer caught in the headlights.
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